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After no doubt some more token little stops on the way to Franz Josef from Lake Mahinapua that I can´t be asked to rake through my brain to remember, we got there and the weather was perfect! Sunny and hardly a cloud in the sky. So it looked as if we were going to get our dream skydive that we´d been holding out for. Then in an unbelievable turn of events, because so many people on the bus wanted to jump, the driver had to pull names out of a hat to see who got to do it. Of course none of us got picked. Unf***ingbelievable! After all the anticipation over whether we were going to get good weather or not, we actually get it, only to then NOT have our names drawn out of a goddamn hat. But the kicker was that the other people who signed up, and a lot of whom inevitably got picked, only did so just because they wanted to skydive, having started their trip in the South Island making this the first opportunity for them to do so. Some others were even doing a 2nd skydive! So the fact that we´d planned and held out for our one and only skydive, maybe of our whole f***ing lives, at this specific place didn´t mean s***. As you can imagine we spent the afternoon not in the best of moods as people went off to jump with a big fat f***ing smile on their face. To add insult to injury, we were told that we might be able to jump the next day after our full day glacier hike on the Franz Josef glacier. It wouldn´t have been ideal fair enough but who cares if we´d have been tired, if the weather was good we would´ve jumped. So of course the next day it absolutely pissed it down all day. Beautiful. Having said all that, the glacier hike was still pretty awesome I thought. I mean even if you're soaked to the bone and freezing your ass off and everything you're wearing and carrying gets drenched (including my camera which stopped working and my tuna baguette) and you're seething about a skydive, you can´t really complain when you´re cruising around on a huge glacier with all these spectacular bright blue ice formations and crevasses around you. Ok I have never been so cold or wet in my life and there´s no photo evidence to prove I was there, but I still enjoyed it immensely, it´s definitely one of the most unique things i´ve done. The Franz Josef glacier is one of only 2 glaciers in the world still advancing, the other one being Patagonia in Argentina, which funnily enough we were also going to after New Zealand. I´d like to say that that was deliberate but I had no clue, lucky anyway. So after eventually drying and warming up back at the hostel, we were awarded a slither of hope when the skydive guy came to the bar and said that he was going to take a small group out at 6 the next morning before the Kiwi-Es bus left, and of course we jumped at the chance (no pun intended). So the next day we dragged ourselves out of bed and the anticipation was excruciating because it was still dark. But on the way to the airfield, the sun began to rise and we were in for some unbelievable conditions. About f***ing time I thought. Me and Rich went up first and as we jumped, the sun was just rising above the mountains with barely a cloud in the sky. It was truly majestic. The surroundings were breathtaking. The snowcapped mountains of Mount Cook and Abel (the 2 tallest in NZ) and the Fox Glacier on one side and the sea on the other all lit by the slightly tinted glow of a not yet fully risen sun, yup pretty damn sweet I can tell you. I wasn´t nervous at all in the plane, how can you be when you're staring out at that. So off went Rich first, one second he was there and then I blinked and he was gone, then the next thing I know I was dangling out the plane inadvertently pulling stupid faces at the camera on the wing. Then off I went. The first few seconds were insane, tumbling about all over the place not knowing which way is up or down as you hurtle it down and can't see the plane anymore, it was awesomely chaotic. Then you straighten up into the classic skydive position where you're all spread out and kind of bent backwards around the jump master attached to your back. Someone on the bus told me that when you're falling, you actually don't feel like you're falling but more like floating on air. Bulls***. I knew damn well I was plummeting towards the ground, and fast. Because free-falling was such a new experience, I couldn't help but stare at the ground, coming ever closer to me, almost forgetting to look up and around and take in the surroundings. Then before I knew it, the shoot went up (thank f***) and all that frantic flurry of sensory bombardment transformed in a split second to a serene, almost peaceful wafting around in the air. That was until the guy tried his best to make me barf by spinning me around all over the place, making it very difficult to film the whole thing with my camera. But I got some good footage (saved me paying like a hundred quid for theirs) and after a textbook landing and finding my feet on the hallowed ground of the field, I realised I had dribbled all over my face so probably looked like a k*** in the video. But I didn't care because I was so psyched and on a seemingly never-ending rush that I couldn't calm myself down from, like a little kid at Disney Land because the only other time I remember being that stoked was when I met Michelangelo the Ninja Turtle when I was 5 at Disney Land (talk about your all time badass experience). Anyway Ben went up and jumped a few people after us, unlucky that he didn't go with one of us but it was only 2 at a time and he lost at paper-scissors-rock (used for all our major decisions), and anyway the weather was still perfect when he went and he also enjoyed it loads so any hard feelings didn't last long. So we pretty much pranced around with utter glee for the rest of the day, much to the delight of the bus who had bore the brunt of our complaining 2 days before. The next stop was Lake Wanaka, another big ol lake in the Otago district famous for imposing mountain ranges and, well, lakes! There's plenty for the outdoor enthusiast in Wanaka and the region is really nice, but no-one really did much there because everyone was just eagerly awaiting the holy land, Queenstown, next. So we just had a few bevies in the bar at the hostel and kept it chilled in the evening before finally heading towards Queenstown the next day, and perhaps the least eagerly anticipated part of the trip, NEVIS BUNGY!
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